Thailand 2

A new blog post is definitely due. It's been a while. For some reason, I thought I'd already posted about Thanksgiving. I'll do a catch-up and then tell about our vacation in more detail.

Well, I really did not get into the holiday spirit at all. When fall rolled around, I forced myself to go and buy a pumpkin. I usually love pumpkin but I had to make myself carve the pumpkin open and roast it in the oven. I don't think I baked anything with pumpkin at all but I did make a delicious curried pumpkin soup with coconut milk. Man, I slurped on that all day long. Otherwise, there is still frozen pumpkin in my freezer and I'm tempted to toss it out.

Then Thanksgiving rolled around. I was less enthused. It was a good celebration with fellow American expats (36 total, 11 of that number were children). I did not have a spirit of thanksgiving.

The day after Thanksgiving, I looked at my calendar and realized I would be at home only 13 days out of the whole month of December. I became even less enthused about Christmas. I made myself drag out the footlocker of Christmas decorations and I put up some decorations in the living room. I didn't plan on putting up a tree. That's right, folks, no tree. I was not excited about anything. G and I agreed not to exchange gifts since we were taking a solo vacation later on in the month and I bought three gifts for each girl in one shopping trip.

Just a few days into December, I went on a trip out to the eastern part of the country, leaving G behind with the girls who were sick. I spent time with my sisters there, encouraging them and sharing stories from the Word. I had so much fun with them, discussing some deep things, wrestling over challenging issues, and doing ordinary things like hanging out at the mall watching ice skaters on the ice rink. The ladies there encouraged me tremendously and it helped me to remember why we came overseas at all. While I was gone, G put up the tree with the lights, strings of silver balls streaming around the tree, and some red ball ornaments. Nothing else. It was a nice surprise.

Soon after returning from the trip, I was knocked down with a horrific cold accompanied by fever and chills, just days before leaving for our vacation. G and I agreed that he would take care of everything while I hunkered down in bed and slept for 4 days so I could get well quicker before vacation. It worked. I was able to pack the day before we flew out and all that lingered from the cold was a bit of a runny nose that was slowly drying up.

We got bumped from our flight to Thailand to visit G's parents. Bumped. The flight had been overbooked. It was a 8pm flight and we would have landed in Bangkok the follow morning and be in Chiangmai by lunchtime. Would've been easy peasy, but no...no, we were bumped. The next flight was at 1 am. I won't go into all the gory details because it's a long story but let me tell you what "stand by" means here in Turkey. It means you have your tickets booked for the next flight but you can go to the gate of the flight from which you were bumped. They load everyone on the plane and if they see an empty seat (say someone has missed his connecting flight), you might get it. It doesn't work like in America when airliners ask passengers to volunteer and give up their seats and receive vouchers. Anyway, of course the flight was full and we watched the plane take off. We were compensated very well: a big wad of cash that is going to pay for a new pair of hearing aids, free pass to the VIP lounge where we could eat for free and rest in comfort (I got both girls to sleep on the couches), and they took care of our connecting flight in Bangkok to Chiangmai, which we insisted on, because obviously, we missed our original connecting flight.

Anyway, we arrived in Chiagmai at 11pm the next night, tired but happy. It was so wonderful to see G's parents. We got over jet lag and did some fun things like going to an elephant camp one day and a zoo called Night Safari the next. The girls had a blast.

Nonna and the girls - you can't ever get the girls to BOTH look at the camera

Day after arriving - so happy!

Wide awake in the middle of the night from jet lag and playing

Meeting a couple of elephants. I was laughing nervously. A had just fed an elephant.

An elephant performed a trick by putting a hat on my head (as they did to John, too).

Cleaning service  

A was brave enough to sit on an elephant knee while I laughed hysterically as another "kissed" me.

We saw a group of baby elephants walking by and the trainers called us over and had A sit on one elephant's knee. I was surprised that she was willing to do it. Then one elephant started sucking on G's face with his trunk and he acted unfazed by it, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. The trainers called me over to stand with them and I said no at first and then relented. John was taking a picture and a trainer snuck his elephant's trunk to my face and surprised me. I began laughing hysterically out of nervousness.

I was surprised by the the elephant's skin. I knew it would be rough but it was also bristly with hair. They seem like sweet, gentle giants and they are well fed and taken care of. They do tricks during a show like paint pictures, kick a soccer ball while another guards the goal, pick up logs, throw darts at balloons, etc. It was a nice day, especially to help get over jet lag. Poor D was falling asleep at random times during the day while we went sightseeing and such.

Then we went to Night Safari. We did a walking tour of the zoo, looking at various animals. Then we had lunch next to a floor to ceiling glass wall through which we could watch zebras and giraffes eat their lunch. Then A fed some giraffes outside the restaurant, on a raised platform so we were level with their heads.

Pop and D, after the safari ride around the zoo

Baby giraffe at the restaurant 

On the safari ride around the zoo and animals came up to our train and ate from our hands or what we threw out

D was so brave watching a huge giraffe come up and eat from her mommy's hand

At the end our time at the zoo, we fed a baby tiger. Yeah, a baby tiger. Whoo. 

Actually, it was Christmas Day when we went to Night Safari. We really enjoyed a different Christmas day in warm sunshine, animals, and feeding a baby tiger. G's parents were so good to us, spoiling us and showing us around. Then they were especially good to us by letting us leave the girls with them and going on a shot trip, just the two of us.

Went to Phuket in southern Thailand where it was warm enough to swim. Phuket has a reputation of being a party town but we got a tip that Karon Beach had a more family atmosphere. We arrived at our hotel that afternoon and walked around, sightseeing and doing a bit of shopping. We bought a tour package to the Phi Phi Islands (sounds like Pee Pee Islands - A laughed at the name later when we told her where we were). Then the next day was nothing but relaxing on the beach and then out to eat at night. The day after was when we went to Phi Phi Islands.

The harbor where we got on the boat to Phi Phi Island

We got on the a high-speed boat with a group of 30 people. The ride out to the islands was fast and very rough and pretty soon, we were all throughly drenched and dripping from the waves splashing over the boat. I was covered with gooseflesh by the time we arrived to the first island. And it was so gorgeous. Like Hollywood-movie-gorgeous.

We arrived! Soaking wet but happy!

Pictures don't do this justice - can you see the little boat?

We got off the boat to explore the island and saw some amazing views. Much to my regret, I left my phone on the boat and I wish I could've taken pictures of the island as we walked through it to the other side. The sand was white, the foliage beautiful, the cliffs rugged, and the water...you can see for yourself in the pictures. Just breathtakingly lovely. Apparently, the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed here. I have never seen the movie, though.

A cave they said was used by pirates hundred years ago

We left the first island and went to another island where there were monkeys. We didn't disembark and explore this one but we could see the monkeys hanging out on the beach. They were fat, presumably from tourists tossing treats onto the beach for them to eat.

It was getting close to lunchtime so we stopped close to the island where we would lunch and we went snorkeling on the coral reefs. It'd been a long time since I'd been on the reefs. This reef wasn't as colorful as others I have seen but the fish were. Everything underwater always appear closer and larger than it really is when you're snorkeling so it gave me the heebie jeebies when I saw an eel slithering in the reef. Too close for my comfort but it was probably far enough.

Think G would have married me if he'd met me like this the first time?

Lunch was a simple affair. It was a buffet. We ate and then relaxed on the sand for a few minutes before being shepherded onto the boat for the final island. It was a tiny island with a few huts selling ice cream and rental lounge chairs and umbrellas. We spent an hour and half there, dozing, and then headed back to Phuket.

It was a wonderful day.

Island where we lunched and relaxed

Panoramic of the above picture

Tiniest crab I have ever seen, on that final island

And the day after the island tour, we just stayed on the beach all. day. long. We didn't even go in for lunch. Greg sketched, dozed, and relaxed. I started and finished Unbroken in one sitting. I can't remember the last time I did that. It was a great book, a true story about a courageous POW in the Pacific war theater of WWII.

Vegging on the beach with a book. I could have stayed there for weeks and weeks and....

In the picture above, there were mountains dropping into the sea to the right and left. For a girl who grew up going to the beaches in a state flat as a pancake, the view of tropical mountains rising out of the green-blue sea is absolutely breathtaking and exotic.

We did some things like get mani/pedi (in my case), fish spa (G, see pictures below), get Thai massages (those hurt!), eat a lot, and shop. We walked through a beautiful Swedish resort so large that you felt like you were on an island all by yourself. It looked terribly expensive and we got lost walking around in the dense tropical foliage, pools, low lighting, cabins, etc. We managed to get out of the resort and find our way back to our hotel.

Ick - I wasn't brave enough

Supposedly eating dead skin off

We spent a couple more days back in Chiangmai with G's parents. We saw a Thai silk place where they grow silkworms and spin, weave, and dye their own silk. They had a shop attached where they sold yards of gorgeous Thai silk, various garments, beautiful scarves, household items (like bedding), etc. I could've spent hours in that store.

Thai silk

Then, sadly, it was the end of our stay. We thoroughly enjoyed the break from the Turkish culture, the warm and sunny climate, the laid-back Thai culture, the various food (lots of American-style food in Chiangmai and we picked up American treats that are unavailable in Turkey), G's parents' company and their help in caring and entertaining the girls. I became exceedingly lazy by the end of vacation.

Riding a luggage cart at the airport in Bangkok on the way back to Turkey

We arrived at the Chiangmai airport at 5:30am (groan) on New Year's Day to catch our flight and picked up Starbucks mugs in the Bangkok airport. We don't collect Starbucks mugs from different countries but we had a gift card from G's parents so we decided to pick up a Chiangmai cup, Phuket cup, and Bangkok cup. We didn't spend any time in Bangkok this trip but I wanted the mug because I enjoyed my time in Bangkok the last trip. The Phuket mug is our favorite and we fight over who's going to drink coffee out of it each morning. We have really great memories and I'm sad that we may never go back there again.

That's it, folks. Sorry if you see typos, grammar mistakes, any sentences that may end abruptly, run-on sentences, etc. I did a perfunctory once-over to edit but no finessing. It's 10 pm and off to bed I go.